Louise Dale had been in and out of foster homes from just 6 months of age. Now 18, she’s about to move into her own home, something she says she wouldn’t be able to do without the help of her amazing foster mum Jan Stiff, who was named Carer of the Year at the Cambridge News Community Awards.

JAN Stiff and Louise Dale look like any other mother and daughter. Sitting on the sofa in their Newmarket home they can’t help but finish each other’s sentences as they catch up on the day’s events.

The women are clearly very close but to 18-year-old Louise, who has been in foster care since she was just 6 months old, Jan is more than a mum: “She’s the woman that changed my life.”

Jan, 60, began fostering in 1997. A midwife for nearly 30 years, Jan admits the profession had taken over her life and she wanted to do something else.

“I was in charge of a large area and I was often working from 7 in the morning until 10 at night, so I wasn’t having a life and I decided it was time to leave.”

With her nursing background, which also included caring for disabled people, Jan was approached by social services to see if she would be interested in caring for a severely disabled child, and her fostering career began from there.

As a long-term foster carer, mainly working with teenagers, Jan has cared for many young adults on her own during the last 15 years, but is keen to point out it’s not the number that’s important to her.

“I do long-term fostering, so it’s not about how many I do – it’s about the quality,” she smiles.

“I chose long-term because then I think the kids have got continuity and stability, and they can feel safe for longer rather than always coming and going.

“You can’t stretch your care to so many teenagers, it just doesn’t work.”

Louise is one of the teenagers Jan has welcomed into her home and, with the foster mum’s unconditional love and support, Louise has transformed her life from being a self confessed “troubled teen” to training to be a beauty therapist, and is about to move into her own home any day now.

Originally from Ipswich, Louise went into foster care when she was just 6 months old.

“My mum was a young mum so she had difficulty understanding what to do with a young child because she didn’t really have the childhood that she would have wanted,” says Louise.

“She didn’t know the first thing about looking after a child and she didn’t have my dad to help her, so they (social services) thought it was best I went into care.”

Louise was placed on the ‘at risk’ register and for her early years her care was divided between her mum and foster carers.

“They tried the respite thing with my mum where I would go to a foster carer for a weekend to see if she would then be able to cope a bit better. It was that unstable I didn’t know if I was going to be at home the next night or if I was going to be with a carer.”

Louise was moved between her mum and foster carers until she was 5 when it was decided full responsibility would be taken over by social services.

“I’ve moved all over,” says Louise. “I’ve moved to quite a few different homes – over 20 – for either a couple of nights or for longer. It was really tough.”

When Louise first came to stay at Jan’s she was 12 years old and in desperate need of a permanent placement. She stayed with Jan for a couple of years and despite feeling safe and secure, she couldn’t free herself from the routine of moving on again.

“I was stuck in that mindset of always moving around,” says Louise. “When I moved out of Jan’s for the first time I had got so used to being moved around that I was expecting someone to say ‘you’re going to need to move on now’.

“So I pushed Jan away and instead of me getting hurt and her saying, ‘I don’t want you anymore’, which I know now she would never say, I said, ‘I don’t want you’, and I went.”

Louise stayed with other foster carers until she was 16 when she decided she wanted to live on her own.

“I moved into a hostel and I was there for 11 months,” explains Louise. “I wanted to have my own place and look after myself and I did it, but I hated it.”

After almost a year living in the hostel in Ipswich, Louise asked Jan if she could stay with her again and, of course, the answer was yes.

“Since coming back I think Louise has moved on in leaps and bounds,” beams Jan. “She’s got herself through a course, she’s got a really nice boyfriend and she’s much more level-headed. She’s just grown up so much and it’s marvellous to think I’ve had the opportunity to see it and that she’s had the opportunity to do it.”

Despite the tough start in life Louise has had, she has remained in contact with her mum but admits it’s not the usual mother-daughter relationship.

“She is my mum, she’ll always be my mum, but I look after her. She never had time to grow up and I’ve had this time to grow up and be an adult, whereas she’s still sort of childlike.”

Her circumstances have also affected her outlook on having children of her own.

“I think it’s best to wait until you’re older and I wouldn’t want to make the same mistakes as her. But I think in some sense, if I was to have a child, I know that I wouldn’t because I know what I’ve been through and I wouldn’t want to do that to a child.”

To show her thanks to Jan, Louise nominated her for Carer of the Year in the Cambridge News Community Awards 2012. Together with Louise and her younger foster daughter, Jan attended the awards at Downing College last month, and was delighted to win the title.

“I was really thrilled to think Louise was so thoughtful to put me forward but in another way I was just so shocked,” says Jan. “I was chuffed but I did think, ‘why me?’ I only do what I do.”

Jan is extremely modest about her fostering role and also Kidzone, the group she runs in Newmarket for children and teenagers with additional needs, but the amount of time Jan gives to others doesn’t go unnoticed by the people around her, in particular Louise.

“She’s so busy,” says Louise. “She’s constantly doing something or looking after someone and I thought she needed some sort of recognition because she doesn’t think that she does as much as she does.”

Jan explains that all the children she has cared for over the years have had different needs and have all come to her under varying circumstances.

“No two children are ever the same but they all come with such enormous baggage and there are so many children that need foster care. It’s quite sad really.”

Earlier this year Jan was seriously poorly while on holiday and it has made her think about her future in fostering.

“I was really ill and the doctors didn’t think I was going to make it. I had problems with my gallbladder and it had got to the extent where it was almost ready to burst. I was very poorly and it took me several months to get over it so I’ve decided that when Louise moves on I’m not going to have another long-term person.

“A lot of carers do need breaks and there are children who need emergency placements so I have said I will do that for the next couple of years.”

Louise may be moving on again but this time it’s to her own home and, as it’s just a few minutes from Jan, she knows her foster mum will never be far away.

“It takes a lot to stand by someone who kicks back from you.

“I think of Jan like my family, she is my family, whether it’s through birth or not doesn’t really matter because I know she’s always going to be there to give me a hug and tell me it’s alright. In my eyes that’s family.”

For information about fostering visit www.nfa.co.uk, or call Cambridgeshire County Council Fostering and Adoption on 0800 0520078.